


isle culture

by TheHarleyQueen



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Aro/Ace Evie, Bi Mal, Fae Mal (Disney), Isle of the Lost (Disney) is a Terrible Place, Queerplatonic Evie/Jay/Mal/Carlos, Romantic Mal/Carlos, Rumours of Cannibalism, Rumours of Incest, Witch Evie (Disney), but they're having a hell of a time doing it, i can pick and choose which parts of disney canon i use, i feel like i shouldn't have to tag that anymore we all know i only write fae mal, if i can pick and choose which parts of mythology i can use, not all of them happened though, references events of Maleficent (2014), the Isle Kids are just fucking with Beast
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:33:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25471690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheHarleyQueen/pseuds/TheHarleyQueen
Summary: Many scholars speculate that 6 is the most magical number. Myth calls it the devil's number and said scholars are inclined to agree.The more devout amongst them like to argue that the most magical number is, in fact, seven. It is God's number, they say, and God is the most magical of all.A third school of thought claims that the most powerful magical number is three- there were three fates, three Graeae, three Erinyes, and three squared muses.All of this is wrong.The most magically powerful number is four. There is no reason for this. God was most likely having a laugh when She decided it.Regardless, for the point of this story, the most magically powerful number is four.That's why Mal le Fey is one of four children born at 4:44 am on the fourth of April.
Relationships: Evie & Jay & Mal & Carlos de Vil, Evie/Jay/Mal/Carlos de Vil, Mal/Carlos de Vil, Queerplatonic Evie/Jay/Mal/Carlos de Vil
Comments: 34
Kudos: 172





	1. The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sarcasm_and_sugar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarcasm_and_sugar/gifts).



> Good evening everyone.
> 
> Once again, Taylor Swift has come in with new content to help inspire me. Last time ya'll got Korë, and to be fair, I didn't know how that was going to end when I started writing it either.
> 
> I have literally no idea where this story is going, but it is going, and I want you to have it. Especially because I have not responded to any comments or posted anything new since Maleficent. My bad.  
> Either way, I'm having fun with this, I'm experimenting with writing styles, and I will finish it. Mostly because even if it takes me five years, I can't stand unfinished works.
> 
> I don't think this will take five years, though.
> 
> Still, everyone please enjoy the goop that dripped out of my brain after I failed two exams I don't know what's going on but neither do you so we're all in this together.
> 
> I hope everyone is staying healthy and safe and WEARING A MASK and SOCIAL DISTANCING and SANITIZING EVERYTHING.
> 
> Love,  
> Harley

Many scholars speculate that 6 is the most magical number. Myth calls it the devil's number and said scholars are inclined to agree.

The more devout amongst them like to argue that the most magical number is, in fact, seven. It is God's number, they say, and God is the most magical of all.

A third school of thought claims that the most powerful magical number is three- there were three fates, three Graeae, three Erinyes, and three squared muses.

All of this is wrong.

The most magically powerful number is four. There is no reason for this. God was most likely having a laugh when She decided it.

{ _Then again, the narrator was born on the fourth, so perhaps this, too, is a lie_ }.

Regardless, for the point of this story, the most magically powerful number is four.

That's why Mal le Fey is one of four children born at 4:44 am on the fourth of April.

{ _This event, in and of itself, is rather messy. All four of the children are born on the Isle of the Lost, which has bad internet and worse sanitary habits on its best days. When four women, one of whom is a powerful fey and also the Isle's best midwife, go into labour, it's never particularly wholesome. This being said, only three goblins died on the fourth of April, so perhaps that is a good omen, or an argument for three being the most magically powerful number. Most likely, it is just a coincidence_ }.

We'll discuss the other three children later, but for now, let's talk of Mal le Fey.

Mal le Fey (born, as we've established, on the fourth of April at 4:44 am) will grow up to be a nuisance. Other things too, but mostly that. She will grow up with horns and purple hair and claws and she will leave the Isle of the Lost.

But when she's born, she's an average-sized baby (7 pounds, 1 ounce, 19 and ¼ inches) who refuses to breastfeed { _this is the first way in which she is a nuisance, because it is very hard to get baby formula on the Isle. When she can speak English, her mother will tell her this_ }.

She performs her first magic five hours after her birth { _the number isn't particularly magical or important, but it does help paint a better picture_ }. Her eyes flash green and everything in the room floats about an inch off the surface it rests on.

This is not particularly impressive, but it is the second way in which she is a nuisance.

She starts smoking when she's fourteen, which doesn't make her a nuisance so much as it makes her unhealthy, but cigarettes are more common than food on the Isle, and nicotine helps stave off hunger pangs when it’s been too long since she’s eaten.

Carlos is normally the one to provide her with cigarettes. We'll discuss him later, but for now all you need to know is that Carlos de Vil is another of the children born at 4:44am on the fourth of April. The cigarettes are always a bit stale, but those are the only kinds of cigarettes that get sent to the Isle in the first place. It’s mutually beneficial for them- he supports her addiction, and she puts out the word that he’s untouchable- if he gets hurt, someone else will get hurt too.

The first time she kisses him, they’re fifteen, and he’s found a mostly-empty box of really good cigars. When he pulls back, he rests his forehead against hers, and she can feel his breath on her lips. When she opens her eyes, he’s smiling.

“I’ve been wanting to do that for so long,” he says, and she laughs, because _no shit_. He isn't, by nature, subtle- he gives her the best of his score. He brings extra for her mom. He flirts incessantly.

She laughs, and takes a drag from her cigar. It’s good quality (Illusione Epernay- according to The 12 Best Cigars to Smoke in 2018, it has “distinct floral notes give way to honey, coffee and cedar”, and it’s the Best Cigar For Special Occasions), and she holds the smoke in her lungs until they burn. Then she leans over to kiss him again, blowing the smoke into his mouth when she does.

*

Mal and Carlos become practically inseparable. He never spent much time at Hell Hall in the first place (didn’t live there for the first nine years of his life, after his mother left him in the hospital on the fourth of April and Maleficent brought home two babies instead of one).

There are rumours about them, around the Isle. People like to whisper that Carlos isn’t actually Cruella’s, that he’s Maleficent’s son that she forced Cruella to claim, with the eventual goal of “breeding” her children to strengthen her bloodline. These are the kinds of rumours that are bound to start, when four children are born to different parents on the same day, at the same time.

It is not true.

Probably.

It does have humorous results though. Most specifically, it terrifies Hades, when he hears the rumour and sends him all the way across the Isle to Bargain Palace to confront his lover.

Carlos sits on the kitchen counter. Mal leans between his legs. They spectate, as Hades begs Maleficent to confirm, for him, that Carlos is not his son. Maleficent, in return, asks him why it would matter.

This is a valid question. Hades’ brother and sister are married. He himself is married to his niece. His parents were siblings. Greek mythology is full of incest.

But, to be fair to Hades, none of the aforementioned people was quite sane.

Anyway.

This confrontation ends with Hades laughed out of Bargain Palace without any answers, and Carlos and Mal recommitting to making out in public.

It’s fun to cause chaos.

*

Speaking of Carlos de Vil, it’s about time we get back to him.

As we’ve established, Carlos de Vil was born at 4:44 am on the fourth of April, on the Isle of the Lost, at the same time as three other children, and that he’s probably not Mal’s brother.

As a matter of fact, Carlos Oscar de Vil was born to Cruella de Vil and an insignificant man (for the sake of the story, we’ll call him Clayton). His parents are only significant insofar as their nature being the direct cause of some very important events in Carlos's life.

More specifically, _one_ very important event in his life.

I am, of course, talking about him being left at the hospital when he was born.

The sequence of events that ends with Carlos de Vil being left at the hospital starts a great deal earlier that one might expect.

It starts in 1980 with a Seeress named Adelaide Camm, who told a young Frenchman that he should take up smoking in order to change the world, and handed him a pack of Gitanes.

Now, this was technically true. And she had seen it. But, in truth, she told every one of her customers the same thing.

She was, after all, getting paid 3 _nouveau franc_ s per prediction. This time, the prediction just happened to be true.

Because the young Frenchman did take up smoking, and later took up with an angry mob determined to kill a Beast for kidnapping a woman.

This puts him in the Isle of the Lost. A nicotine craving puts him on the main street at 5 am with a cigarette in his mouth and a lighter flickering in his hand.

So when Cruella de Vil, a known smoker and madwoman, came out of the nearby building in a ratty nightgown, looking at him with an almost-hungry look in her eye, the Frenchman offered her a cigarette without hesitation.

Now, cigarettes aren’t known to cause blackouts in the way that alcohol does.

But Cruella de Vil isn’t known to be particularly consistent.

When she steps outside for a smoke, she leaves her new baby in the crib with Maleficent’s girl, because she isn’t really ready to be a mother at all anyway and she doesn’t know what to call it and she really _really_ needs a cigarette.

Within a few seconds, the silence around her grows too loud, and she strikes up a conversation with the Frenchman, who looks like he’d really rather be anywhere else in the world.

Cruella de Vil notices this and continues talking anyway. She prattles on about an old coat of hers that’s falling to pieces that she wants to repurpose, but into _what_ , she asks.

“A bra is just gauche. There won’t be enough fur for a new coat.” She rambles. The Frenchman stares in confusion and a slight amount of awe, and the suggestion slips out without him really meaning for it to.

“What about a skirt?”

Cruella de Vil scrutinizes him with a look in her eye that most would call madness, that Anita might call inspiration.

They’d all be right.

Because Cruella de Vil grabs the Frenchman’s hand and pulls him off with her, asking for specifics and ideas and cuts and idly mentioning that she needs a new protégé.

{ _As it turns out, the Frenchman has no real talent for fashion at all, and after several days in a creative fugue, Cruella de Vil realizes this and kicks him out of Hell Hall. By the time she goes back for her son, he’s gone, and she shrugs it off. He wasn’t really a problem she wanted anyway_ }.

Now, while Cruella de Vil was desperately avoiding responsibility, Maleficent had been stuck in the pseudo-hospital room, staring at _two_ babies.

She wasn’t the mothering type. This was something Maleficent knew quite firmly about herself. She’d had a daughter so that her daughter could inherit the moors after her, or perhaps so that her _granddaughter_ could inherit the moors if her daughter never got off this god-forsaken island.

Maleficent’s only other foray into parenting had involved sending a crow in to fix everything.

But now there were _two_ babies in front of her, and while she knew which one was hers, it didn’t really seem fair to just leave the other one here. His mother was a bitch, but he hadn’t done anything wrong.

She leaned down and picked up the boy, rocking him back and forth. Cruella hadn’t even bothered naming her son before she went in search of a smoke, so the boy was currently nameless.

She stared down at him and racked her brain. She’d never expected to need to name a _son_. Well, it never hurt to be direct. _Adam_ might be good. It very clearly laid forward what he was. Or Charles, maybe, but she thought that Aurora’s grandfather on her mother’s side might have been named Charles, and that didn’t seem like a fun name to saddle a child with.

Eventually, she names the boy Oscar, after Oscar Wilde, a man that she had actually quite enjoyed when he was alive.

{ _Two years after this, two years after the creation of the Isle of the Lost, the crown of Auradon realizes that there might be children being born on the Isle, and send in a couple of underpaid workers to take a census. By this point, Cruella knows her son is with Maleficent and doesn’t really care, but when the harried-looking federal employee shows up at her door with a birth certificate, Cruella decides that Carlos was still **her** son, and that he was going to have a name that **she**_ _gave him._

_She calls him Carlos, mostly because it sounds like her name. She writes Oscar after that because the boy still responds to Oscar, and it makes sense._

_As Carlos later discovers, his name means **man** , just like Maleficent wanted. He just finds it funny_}.

Maleficent does not let Oscar (and then Carlos, when he turns two and his mother actually legally names him and then refuses to let anyone call him anything else) think that he is her son. The fey don’t have sons, only daughters, and Carlos is human above that. He is not of her bloodline, and she does not let him think he is. He knows from the time he can comprehend that she’s not his mother, she’s just kind of looking after him.

It works for them.

Of course, in spite of Maleficent’s insistence that he know that he is _not her son_ , the rumours flow anyway. That he and Mal are secretly siblings is popular, but people also like to suggest that he’s a changeling, or that _neither_ of them are Maleficent’s children and that they were both kidnapped from Sleeping Beauty.

Most of these rumours aren’t really rumours. Everyone on the Isle knows everyone else, and everyone knows everyone’s secrets.

But the crown sends in a spy on a semi-regular basis (her name is Marissa, and she thinks she hasn’t been caught yet, but the golden road that stretches out from the Isle for no apparent reason days before she shows up from the ‘woods’ casts some suspicion amongst the locals) and the best way to get her _gone_ is to feed her as much information as possible.

One of the easiest ways to do this is to just tell her whatever’s in the rumour mill at the time. Maleficent may be secretly breeding her children to ensure a stronger bloodline? They already think she’s evil. The Evil Queen and her daughter eat human flesh in a complicated highly illegal magical ritual that keeps their youth intact? Sure why not.

{ _Evie’s only eaten human flesh the one time, and all her friends were doing it, so she thought it was okay. But it kind of became a running joke after that_ }.

Another easy way to do this is to claim that Marissa is just in time for their town hall meeting, wherein they discuss all of the business of the people of the Isle including how they’re doing to deal with their finances.

{ _They steal most of their speeches from episodes of the 1990 TV series City. There were only thirteen episodes_ }.

This is when our story starts.


	2. The Beginning, Continued, because The Author Neglected to Mention Evie and Jay in the First Beginning

It's not really fair to begin the story, though, without first introducing Jay and Evie as well.

Jahid ibn Jafar is born on the fourth of April. By now, you will have already guessed this, but it's important to remain as clear as possible.

His mother names him Jahid, and that’s what his father calls him, but his father is also not stupid enough to go around telling other people his son’s name, not when half of the Auradonian government is run by the fey. So when the census workers come around, two years to the day after Jahid’s birth, Jafar just scribbles a quick ‘ _J_ ’ under the First Name(s) category, and then that’s what appears on all of Jahid’s official documents. It’s what the teachers call him because they can’t be bothered to remember two names for one student.

When the Evacuation begins, the Auradonian government looks at his birth certificate again, and thinks that there must have been an error somewhere along the line. So ‘ _J_ ’ becomes _‘Jay’_ , which sticks.

He spends most of his young life on the periphery of Mal, Evie, and Carlos’s lives. Jafar isn’t very interested in spending time with Maleficent and Grimhilde, especially in the weeks after the fourth of April, when he is rather swamped with dealing with a newborn (after the initial weeks, it becomes a question of pride- of proving that he didn’t need help to take care with his son) and planning said newborn’s mother’s funeral.

Jay is a thief, which is fairly common on the Isle of the Lost.

He is also a lone wolf, which is not[[1]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25471690/chapters/66555781#chapter_2_endnotes).

*

In spite of Jay’s lack of presence in Mal, Carlos, and Evie’s youth, Jafar is rather more important to the story of Evie, Jay, Mal, and Carlos than you might expect. For one thing, he is the one to suggest the “town halls” to get rid of Auradonian spies (he had, of course, been ~~part of~~ the figurehead of an authoritarian government for a while, and so had some ideas about how to deal with this one). This is important because the town halls were, as we’ve established, where our story starts.

For another, he is also behind the rumour about cannibalism that follows Evie around (and, to a lesser extent, he’s also behind that one time that she actually ate human flesh).

See, Jafar ran the pawnshop at the centre of the Isle of the Lost.

Well, to call it a pawn shop may be a bit kind. Really, it was more of a Stolen Goods And A Couple Of Pawned Items shop. For all that Jafar had endlessly persecuted the pickpockets of Agrabah, it turned out that he was quite good at it himself.

The thing about the pawnshop is that it is the best place to go if you need something. It’s also the place trash goes to die. Once a month, Auradon sends a barge over to the Isle, with all of the scraps that they can’t sell anymore. Fast fashion items that were produced too many times, the bread that grew stale before someone bought it, the parts of the meat the butchers can’t sell to princes and princesses (anyone who sets aside of a portion of their product to be sent to the Isle gets a pretty heavy tax rebate, so the haul generally isn’t _that_ bad).

The contents of the barge are then rationed out to all of the households of the Isle, without much care for usefulness.

Once the barge is beyond the magical barrier again, the trading begins. There’s a pinboard up at Jafar’s shop, and if someone needs something, in particular, they can leave a note asking to trade (there are problems with this system. Specifically, Jafar tears down a lot of the posters, so that the original writers eventually have to come to him).

But many people will go straight to Jafar to trade. He’s something like the hub of the Isle black market, and he’s more likely to get you what you want, faster.

Even though Jafar’s shop is supposed to be a pawn shop, a lot of items that generally wouldn’t be found in a pawn shop end up there anyway. One of these items is the meat that butchers in Auradon struggle to sell; specifically organs- brain, eyes, lungs, heart. Jafar will generally trade for them because he can charge starving people quite a bit for any kind of food (the store doesn’t have a freezer, though, and so the residents of the Isle of the Lost get very good at pickling).

This is all a lot of backstory for a very normal interaction. The Evil Queen had eaten venison heart more than once, by the time she was locked up on the Isle (most famously, the time she’d thought she was eating Snow White’s heart). So every month, she goes by Jafar’s place, drops off the two loaves of bread that she’s allocated (she and her daughter are on a strict no-carb diet) and in return, she walks out with a jar of pickled hearts.

One day, someone sees her and spreads the rumour that they’re _human_ hearts that she’s walking out with, and that she eats them in a ritual to keep her and her daughter young (they spread this rumour for a laugh, but eventually it gets spreads so far and wide and taken so seriously that even _they_ begin to wonder if it’s true).

The rumour is actually, all-in-all, good for the Evil Queen. People stay away from her, worried that if they anger her, she’ll cut out their hearts and eat them.

This fear doesn’t keep them away from Evie.

By the time Evie is fifteen, she’s smart as a whip and probably the best-liked person on the Isle. She plays her role well- she’s kind and friendly to other women, and flirtatious but not wanton around men, and pretty enough that she always gets her way.

She’s also friends with Carlos and Mal (because her mother likes to hang around Maleficent as if her power will rub off on them), so no one on the Isle is likely to try and take her title.

Evie is endlessly fascinated with them. Not in the least because they were all born at the same time- she’s sure that there’s something more to it than circumstance, no matter how firmly Carlos tries to tell her that, statistically, it’s not _unlikely_ for four children to be born at the same time, not when there are roughly three hundred and eighty-five thousand people born each day.

But where Evie is svelte curves and soft lines, Mal and Carlos are all strength and sinew and muscle and hard planes. And sometimes, she’ll stare at them when she catches them kissing, and wonders if they can really be enjoying it as much as they seem { _Mal tries to kiss her once, and it leads to the supremely awkward moment where Evie shrinks back and giggles softly (the awkwardness doesn’t last long, and eventually it probably ties them closer together, but it does permeate the air around them until Carlos tells them to knock it off)_ }. What fascinates Evie about the three of them is the feeling of absolution whenever she is near them. They will forgive her for any sin, just as she will forgive them.

{ _In our universe, Emily Brontë wrote: “Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same”- which is not nearly as romantic as you might think, but that’s a story for another time. And besides, later in the same book, Emily wrote another line- “I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being”- that captured Evie’s feelings on the matter much more accurately. She was not made of the same stuff as Carlos and Mal, but rather, she and Carlos and Mal were all one form of existence, tied to each other as inextricably as the names of romantic novels. Just like you never think of the name Romeo without Juliet, or the name Bonnie without Clyde, it was impossible to think of Evie without also thinking of Mal and Carlos_ }.

*

Evie, Carlos and Mal meet Jay for the first time at a town hall. The hall is just Coward’s Market, an open-air piazza in the middle of the Isle that’s usually filled with temporary stalls selling whatever is available. Mal is perched on a wall, Evie in her lap, Carlos leaning against her legs, when Jay hops down from a fire escape to sit near to them (not _next_ to them, he’s not an idiot, but there’s not much space left in the square and _especially_ not space so far from the hastily-constructed stage the alliance representatives are sitting on (Lady Tremaine, Maleficent, Hades, Ursula, Claude Frollo, and Dr. Facilier). Mal side-eyes him for a second but seems to decide that he’s no threat { _Carlos keeps a careful watch on him, though. He doesn’t let his guard down, not around his girls_ }.

From their vantage point, all four of them can see Marissa, who is leaning against the broken statue of Belle and the Beast in the middle of the square.

Of course, Claude Frollo fucks everything up.

It’s the first time he’s ever been a representative- he’d gotten too evangelical for the Tremaines, with his eternal preaching of sin and damnation, and they’d turned against him.

“Brothers and Sisters, are we not the children of God?” he asked, spreading his arms wide to gesture to the whole crowd gathered in the square.

He was met with silence { _mostly- “Some of us more than others,” Jay muttered from where he was perched on the wall, watching Mal and Carlos out of the corner of his eye. The former snorted when she heard it, and the latter giggled, but neither acknowledged him beyond that_ }.

Still, Claude Frollo was undeterred.

“He made each one of us in His image,” Frollo continued, “and as such, He asks us to respect ourselves, and so respect Him.”

“ _Get to it,_ ” Maleficent snapped, examining her fingernails { _she, of course, had not been formed in the image of God, who was currently using they/them pronouns anyway_ }.

“Each of our bodies is His body. And so I can no longer tolerate the blasphemy you commit silently.” He’d worked himself into a frenzy now, shouting, red in the face, spittle flying from his mouth.

“In this gathering sit men who lie with men, sisters to lie with their brothers-” his eyes flickered unconsciously to Maleficent, and Mal wanted to bang her head against a brick- “and women who reject their ordained roles as wives and mothers and instead turn to Satan to grant them pleasures of the flesh.”

Marissa the Spy had gone very, very pale. She was watching the scene play out, in the same way, one might watch a very public breakup between people one is not actually friends with.

“Our God is gracious!” Claude Frollo shouted still, raising his voice louder to be heard over the jeers of the crowd.

“He forgives the sinners, the heretics and the apostates, but you must repent! He has sent me here to save his children from damnation!”

“What the fuck is this, then?” Someone- Uma, Ursula’s daughter- yelled back from their position in the crowd.

“You’re too fucking late!” Another person agreed, and then no one could hear anything for all the voices clamouring to be heard.

Jay sighed, pushing himself to balance on the wall. This was, to be fair to Claude Frollo, how most town halls ended. But it was also the first time anyone had raised the rumours- about Mal and Carlos, about the Isle witches who could practise without access to magic- in a formal setting, which meant that the Auradonian government might actually feel the need to step in { _they would, of course, they would, because **this** is where the story really starts_}.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1]: There is a Silmarillion-style amount of background required to understand this. So, for a moment, forget Jay specifically, and let’s talk about the Isle culture that he grows up in.
> 
> When the Isle of the Lost Solution (detailed in the second amendment of the Constitution of the United States of Auradon) was first enacted, the state of the Isle could most succinctly be described as chaos. Many of the prisoners had been very much dead hours before, and Auradon had not thought to explain to them why they were suddenly not. This resulted in a killing spree unlike anything seen before- some horrendous mixtures of killing for self-defence and killing for gain.
> 
> About twenty-four hours after the Isle of the Lost Solution was implemented, the government of the United States of Auradon broadcasted their first Public Service Announcement to the Isle, explaining the situation. Those who were still alive formed tentative truces and worked to bury the bodies they’d left as soon as possible.
> 
> Forty-eight hours after the Isle of the Lost Solution was implemented, the recently-buried began to dig their way out of their shallow graves. This led to the first two alliances (houses, families, coalitions; they had a lot of names)- those who had lived through the first forty-eight hours, and those who had not. It was generally assumed that people would offer aid to those who belonged to the same group as them.
> 
> Of course, it couldn’t remain that way forever, or even for very long. Many of those who had survived were extremely powerful, once upon a time, and so found it difficult to work together, and so their group fractured- Maleficent, the Evil Queen, and Jafar stood together, and so did the Tremaines, Gaston, and Governor Ratcliffe, and so on. Hades immediately situated himself in a cave system and literally didn’t speak to anyone else until he fucked Maleficent.
> 
> Similarly, some of those who had died upon being sent to the Isle made the choice to seek protection from other, more powerful villains. Claude Frollo appealed to the Tremaines as a man of the cloth. Mother Gothel occasionally took care of Mal, Carlos and Evie.
> 
> These alliances often reformed, too. Some shattered entirely, some switched sides, and so on. It was a nightmare to learn, but most residents of the Isle managed fairly well, or, like Jay, kept out of it entirely.


End file.
